Blemishes keep city in national spotlight

By Philip J. LaVelleUNION-TRIBUNE STAFF WRITER

July 19, 2005

In normal times, convictions of two San Diego council members wouldn't warrant a blip on the national radar. After all, local politicians are low on the food chain, and political corruption is hardly a rarity.

NELVIN CEPEDA / Union-Tribune

A depleted City Council named Councilwoman Toni Atkins (right) mayor pro tem for one week after Councilmen Ralph Inzunza and Michael Zucchet were convicted.
The six remaining council members intend to select a formal temporary mayor next week.

But San Diego hasn't seen normal in a while, and it's hard to top a scandal involving elected officials, strip clubs and Las Vegas influence peddlers.

It's harder still to top one that follows a local congressman ending his career in disrepute and a disgraced mayor walking away from his job.

"Maybe it's just coincidence, but quite a number of unfortunate events have settled on San Diego almost simultaneously," said Larry Sabato, a University of Virginia political scientist.

San Diego's fiscal crisis has been an on-again, off-again national news story for roughly a year now, and seems almost old hat.

But a string of recent events has heightened the sense that San Diego is gripped by some sort of bizarre political virus – something carried in the water supply, perhaps, or produced by overexposure to the sun.

On Thursday, Rep. Randy "Duke" Cunningham, a swaggering Vietnam fighter ace and the subject of a federal investigation involving possible financial improprieties and a defense contractor, announced he will not seek re-election.

Friday, Mayor Dick Murphy left office, resigning from a City Hall under fiscal duress and federal investigation.

And yesterday, Councilmen Ralph Inzunza and Michael Zucchet, who was Murphy's hand-picked interim successor, were convicted in a scandal involving extortion and a Las Vegas topless-club mogul.

The convictions produced varying reactions, from shock among some of San Diego's political elite to a detached confirmation among Wall Street types that things really are as bad here as they seem.

Last year, The New York Times wondered in a headline whether the city had become "Enron-by-the-Sea." This week, U.S. News & WorldReportreported on San Diego's many woes under the headline, "A Scandal by the Sea."

San Diego's long nightmare has its roots in late 2002, when news broke of an underfunded city pension system that today poses a clear and present danger to the city's finances.

The next year, Inzunza, Zucchet and fellow Councilman Charles Lewis were indicted in the corruption scandal. Lewis died before the trial started.

Some believe San Diego's troubles are getting national attention not because the city is seen as a den of corruption, but because it has long been perceived as anything but.

"If this were a New Jersey city," said Sabato of the University of Virginia, "the story would be buried on Page B-10, because scandal and corruption are so endemic in the Garden State. There are so many mayors and council members convicted in New Jersey, you can't keep count.

"But San Diego? It's news. . . . San Diego has had an image across the country as a clean, All-American, Sun Belt city."

To be fair, San Diego is not the only California political-corruption story.

Numerous smaller-city officials have been caught up in corruption probes in the Los Angeles area recently. A federal investigation targeted former Los Angeles Mayor Jim Hahn's administration, and the FBI has been investigating state Senate leader Don Perata of Oakland.

"You are not alone," said Sherry Bebitch Jeffe, a political analyst at the University of Southern California.

And the Zucchet-Inzunza matter is not the first scandal to hit San Diego.

In 1970, the political careers of Mayor Frank Curran and several City Council members were cut short in the Yellow Cab scandal, where it was alleged that taxi rates were raised in exchange for campaign payoffs.

In 1978, Jess Haro was removed from the council after a misdemeanor customs fraud conviction.

Mayor Roger Hedgecock resigned in 1985 in a scandal involving charges that he took illegal campaign contributions. And in 2001, Councilwoman Valerie Stallings resigned after pleading guilty to misdemeanors related to taking unreported gifts from Padres owner John Moores.

Still, none of these previous scandals came gift-wrapped like this one – pairing elected officials with the seamy side of Las Vegas – set against a backdrop of deep fiscal crisis, sliding credit ratings and continued federal investigations.

On the ground in San Diego, it stunned veteran political observers and added to the feel of a rudderless city government.

"I don't know what to tell you. I'm dumbstruck," said Richard Ledford, a former chief of staff to then-Mayor Susan Golding.

"I think it is a surprise," said lobbyist and Republican activist John Dadian. Many political observers, he said, were "hoping against hope. You hate to see any young politicians get convicted."

Shock has become confusion, with no clear picture of who will preside, as Murphy's interim successor, over the City Council.

Council members will select one of their own next week to be interim mayor, and this person will probably hold the post into the fall, because it's unlikely any candidate will win an outright majority in the special mayoral election next Tuesday.

In that case, a two-candidate runoff won't settle the matter until Nov. 8.

Special elections to fill vacancies in the Inzunza and Zucchet council districts have not been set, but the immediate impact is clear: A City Council that needs five votes to get anything done is now down to six filled seats, with three vacancies, counting the mayor's chair.

The political dynamic of City Hall has not been disrupted that much – Democrats still retain a majority, at four seats to two – but the coming elections could change all that.

Crazy as it all seems, there's one important constituency that took it all in stride, albeit for reasons the local Chamber of Commerce is not likely to crow about.

"It's not new news," said Amy Doppelt, a managing director at Fitch Ratings, a Wall Street credit-rating agency that earlier this year lowered San Diego's bond rating to just above junk status.

"I think the convictions may affirm one of several concerns that the financial markets have had about the city – that there is a lack of leadership and focus on finding a long-term solution to the financial strain caused by the pension system," she said.